Imagine the following scenario. You have a document with 20 figures labeled Figure 1 , Figure 2 , Figure 3 , etc . You have been writing the document for days. You realize today that you need to include a new figure right at the beginning of the document. You include it. But now, if you label it as Figure 1 you need to change the old Figure 1 to Figure 2 and so on and so forth, 20 times. (Plus every single time that those figures are referenced). 🙈

Authorea uses a dynamic labeling and referencing system so that all elements of a document --- headings, tables and figures --- can be referenced and automatically numbered. How does it work?

Click the ¶ icon in the editor toolbar to pull up the reference tool. If you don't have any figures, tables or headings, it will look like this:

So, go ahead and create some paragraphs with headings (h1, h2, h3) and some figures with captions. Click again the ¶ icon in the toolbar and you will now be able to reference these components on the fly, by selecting them from a list:

Now, if you need to add a figure before Figure 1 you don't need to change a thing. Just add it. We'll take care of the rest 😎
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